


the future is dark and we can't change it

by ViolentVioletEye



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Confusing, Evil Wilbur, Except at the end?, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I think the end is sweet, I'm bad at tagging i'm sorry LMAO, Lotta hurt, No Slash, Open to Interpretation, Shits bad man, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Vilbur, very little comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentVioletEye/pseuds/ViolentVioletEye
Summary: Tubbo and Tommy notice strangers in the war.They know these strangers a lot more then they realize.
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 14
Kudos: 244





	the future is dark and we can't change it

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [-Writing- engaged. Taking requests!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27164590) by [Hazel2023](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazel2023/pseuds/Hazel2023), [ShootysMCshootFace (Hazel2023)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazel2023/pseuds/ShootysMCshootFace). 



> the past is gone and we're hopeless

Tubbo was the one that caught sight of them first. It was such a brief encounter that he had forgotten it as soon as it happened. He had been focused on his bees, watching as they fed off the flowers he had grown just for them with a gleeful smile. He had seen something a couple of hundred yards in front of him, near a bundle of trees, and when he turned his head he saw a head of dark brown hair disappearing behind some trees. When he didn’t see them pop back up he determined it was most likely Eret and went back to his bees as they captured his attention again when one of them zipped past his face. He forgot all about it by the end of that minute, too busy laughing and enjoying his bees.

Tommy saw them next, a month later. Two distant shapes, standing on a hill across from L’Manberg. One was taller than the other by a lot and bulker in muscle. They were just dark figures, features hidden by the setting sun behind them. Tommy was on guard duty on top of the walls, passing back and forth along the south wall while other soldiers he didn’t know personally paced on the others. He immediately wondered if they were enemies, and from the height difference, he wondered if they were George and Dream. He shouted at them, warning them not to get too close, but his voice was lost to the wind. With a frustrated growl, he knocked an arrow into his bow, aimed, and fired.

He had always been a lousy shot, so the arrow didn’t meet its mark. It fell too soon, halfway into the hill. Tommy sighed in aggravation and reached for another arrow, but then one of the figures, the tallest one, tilted his head up and seemed to stare right at Tommy. Realistically, if he couldn’t see them, they wouldn’t be able to see him either. They were too far away from each other, though they had the advantage of the sun staying out of their damn eyes. Tommy was getting a headache from all of this squinting. He went to shout at them again, but something made him stop. A cold chill ran down his spine, and he felt… almost frightened. It pissed him off. He wasn’t a little boy. He could handle some dark figures on the horizon. What could they do to him? He was armed and he had the high ground. But still, even with all of this backing him up, he felt rooted to the ground. He knew he should shout to the others, should signal the soldiers patrolling the ground below the walls so they could be on guard. This could be an ambush, some distraction, it could ruin them, but he couldn’t move.

He watched as the two figures turned and walked down the other side of the hill, disappearing from view, and he couldn’t do anything but let them walk away.

He never told anyone about it.

Tommy and Tubbo both saw them together the next time, as they were running for their lives. They were sprinting through the forest, some of Dream’s best right at their heels as they shouted and whooped. They had killed the patrol they had been with, and though Tubbo knew he would see them when they respawned again in a couple of hours, he couldn’t get the image of them just being cut down inches from him out of his mind.

_What am I doing?_ He thought to himself, as he and Tommy were getting cornered, skidding across dead ends and parts of the forest too overgrown to sprint through. _Why am I here?_ He asked himself as Tommy grabbed his arm in a bruising grip, yanking him behind him as he held his sword tightly. _I’m just a kid,_ he thought in despair as Dream’s hunters cackled in their youthful faces, weapons slick with their fallen comrades’ blood.

_I’m just a kid._

A fishing line whipped out past the tree Tubbo’s back was pressed against, wrapped around them, and yanked them backward. They lost their footing and Tommy cut his forearm open on the bark of the tree as they went scraping past it, tearing at their uniforms that they were too young for. As they went tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs, wrapped together by that fishing line, Tubbo was acutely aware of how young and small and fragile they both were, even Tommy who was six foot five and was getting more and more power in his muscles with every passing day. They were young. They were so young. They were just kids.

Tommy was focused on the shape leaping over them, gripping the fishing pole in one hand and a netherite sword in the other. The night was dark and the moon only illuminated half of his face, the rest covered by the shadows his hood cast. Blond hair, flat and messy, dull blue eyes that looked almost bored even as the stranger landed on his feet and tossed the fishing pole aside, slicing a Dream soldier down the front and ducking under their next hit, before they plunged his sword into their neck and they fell to the floor, dead. The fishing pole was grabbed by another hand, and they flicked it before the thin line wrapped around Tubbo and Tommy disappeared. They became aware of a second person, smaller than the other, with brown hair and equally dull blue eyes that peered at them from underneath their own hood.

The first one looked back at them and they saw he had a short beard, the same blond shade of his hair. Tubbo felt like it looked like Tommy’s own.

“Run,” the blond stranger’s voice sounded like he had swallowed gravel and enjoyed it, and Tommy and Tubbo clung to each other and backed away as his friend lifted a bow and nocked an arrow into it. They were aiming at Dream’s soldiers that had shaken their shock and were charging in to avenge their friend. Tubbo and Tommy were young, they were scared, and they were just kids.

So they ran.

Tommy gripped onto the rope and slid down it, rushing down the two-by-two hole he had mined out with his friend. He went flying past several layers, mouth set in a thin line. Suddenly, his feet kicked back against the stone wall behind him and the rope swung him forward with the force, propelling him forward just in time for the wall in front of him to disappear and open up into a vast and large cavern. They had blown it up like this when L’Manberg was setting off fireworks to celebrate their independence. They were still doing it, and they had been settled in here for a week now.

He let the rope take him as far as it could go before he let go, and for a moment, he fell freely. Then, he struck some slime blocks and bounced up, and when he reached the jump’s peak he was able to step right onto a stone ledge.

Tubbo glanced up from where he was repairing his bow, foot pressed down against the thin strip of wood as he tied its newest string onto it. Tommy didn’t say anything, walking across the floor to his friend who never took his eyes off of him. He stopped just a breath away to dump something into his lap. Tommy glanced down and paused, staring in confusion until he saw the label on the bag. His eyes widened and he released his bow. The string, which had only been tied to one side, snapped against his hand as he did but he didn’t even feel the sting as he grabbed the bag and lifted it up to peer closer at the label.

“You actually went?” He asked, dumbfounded as he looked up at his best friend. The label was of Niki’s bakery, something neither of them had seen in a long time. Or, well, it seemed that Tubbo was the only one who hadn’t now. Tommy must have gone there. How could he have gotten a bag of freshly baked goods there? Tommy shrugged and scratched the underside of his neck, staring down at him with hooded, dull blue eyes.

“It’s easy to pretend your someone else when you’ve got a beard. And, she wasn’t working the counter. Off celebrating, she had a worker… Well.” He sighed, his hoarse voice gaining a sad tone. “You remember.”

They both wished they didn’t.

“You know those guys that saved us?” Tommy blinked and looked at Tubbo, who was sitting on a bench as he watched Fundy and Wilbur set off another bout of fireworks. Everyone else was laughing, talking, dancing, drinking, and eating, though the two friends were separated from them, together as always. They would join in a moment. Tubbo just needed a breather. He wasn’t as extroverted as his best friend. Tommy understood that, though he was beginning to get restless. He wanted to celebrate with their friends! They deserved it! “You know, the guys in the forest? With the fishing pole?”

“Oh! Yeah! What about them?” Tubbo looked at him.

“We never found out who they were,” he pointed out. Tommy paused and stared, realizing his friend was right. He pursed his lips and drummed his fingers against his arm, then shrugged.

“Eh. Maybe they were some soldiers.”

“But they didn’t have the uniform at all or had Dream’s symbol for that matter. They couldn’t have been civilians, they fought well. Too well—”

“Oh, Tubbo, what’s it matter?” Tommy stood up from where he had been crouched in the grass, clasping his friend’s shoulder and shaking him gently. Tubbo frowned playfully up at him, but his lips were already beginning to twitch into a smile. “Come on! Let's go grab the last of Niki’s bread! I’m hungry!” Tubbo yelped as Tommy grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet, but then laughed as he stumbled along after his best friends, the strangers pushed out of his mind.

For now.

They saw them in the forest, again. They had stayed out too long, gathering too many resources for their newest project. The moon was new, so it shed no light on them as they sprinted through the forests. They were kids, dumb, immature kids that had seen too much and felt too much, who made rash decisions because they had been trained to by their leader to win a nation that had never been worth fighting for. This wasn’t their thoughts, but the stranger’s as Tommy ran right into his chest. The teen fell back on his ass while Tubbo skidded to a stop, falling beside Tommy to grab his hand and help him stand as they stared at the man with wide eyes. He didn’t have his hood. Fantastic.

They could take in his entire face, the scar on his cheek, his dark eyes that must have been light and youthful once, his beard that showed his age, and his blond hair that was pulled back in a bun that pressed against the base of his skull. He wore adventure clothes that consisted of trousers and heavy boots that went to his knees, a white shirt, a sword strapped to his back, and some cloth tied around his neck. It was faded and had holes in it, but it still hung onto his neck with all the strength it could muster as the wind blew through his hair and his clothes.

“What are you doing out here?” His hoarse voice growled, resisting the urge to look towards the secret entrance to his and his friend’s underground base. They couldn’t know about it, could they? He stared past their heads as Tommy stuttered, caught between curses and demanding to know who the fuck he was when he saw all of the mobs coming right towards them. He sighed and shut his eyes before he reached up and pulled his sword out. He remembered this now.

Tubbo screamed and Tommy yanked them back, clutching Tubbo to his chest protectively as he kept his arms wrapped tight around him.

“Run,” the man growled, and it was no doubt that it was the same man as before, as he barrelled towards the mobs with the same speed and ferocity in his battle cry he had used when he charged towards those soldiers of Dream. Tubbo and Tommy tripped over each other’s feet until Tommy was finally willing to let Tubbo go and they sprinted off, running and running back to L’Manberg, to the safety of its walls.

Tommy and Tubbo watched the events of the election unfold below them, crouched on top of a nearby building. Tommy was sharpening his sword with a rock, and the sound didn’t grate on Tubbo’s ears nearly as much as Schlatt’s did. His eyes narrowed as he watched, watched the world crumble around all of those people that had believed they could make a difference. That they could keep this nation on its feet and all of its walls, when at the end of the day it was doomed to fall the moment the idea came to their deranged leader’s head.

Tubbo stood up, the faded red bandana fluttering from where he had it tied around his forearm.

“Give it. I’ve seen enough.”

Tommy handed him the crossbow, which was already loaded with an arrow that wobbled like it wasn’t solid, it glitched and was almost disoriented like it didn’t actually exist in the server. Tubbo handled the crossbow with care as he lifted it, aimed, and fired.

“Is to revoke the citizenship! Of Wilbur Soot, and Tommy—!”

It hit its mark, going through his head and out the back, dissolving into nothing just as it struck the wall behind him. His body wobbled and then burst into infected bites of code that was swept away by the nonexistent wind before those too disappeared entirely.

_Schlatt was slain by Tubbo, using ᔑ∷∷𝙹∴ 𝙹⎓ ⍊╎∷⚍ᓭ_

The glitched text, the sudden disappearance of the once-President, had those gathered frozen before chaos erupted. Shouts filled the air, Schlatt’s people scrambled out of their chairs but they were immediately surrounded, and for all of their crossbows they meant nothing as they were outnumbered with people furious and protective of their leader and his right-hand man. There in the chaos, Tubbo stood, staring at his communicator with wide eyes. He hadn’t… No, he hadn’t. He didn’t even have his crossbow, he had left it back home, he…!

He didn’t do that!

He lifted his eyes and saw two figures on top of a building, just as they ender pearled away.

So who had? And how did they use his name? And… and what was that thing that they used on Schlatt, that hadn’t even left a body behind to respawn…?

Tubbo felt sick.

“I didn’t do it,” he whispered feverishly. “I didn’t, I didn’t, you have to understand, I—”

“Tubbo, it’s alright! No one is mad at you! You did a good thing, killing that terrible man! You heard how he was talking, he was a madman and a tyrant! I’m not sure how you were able to corrupt his code, but that doesn’t matter!” Tears poured down the young boy’s cheeks as Wilbur praised him for killing a man, for wiping him from the Minecraft servers, for erasing the very bare bones of his code, the very numbers that had kept him living, a man and a code destroyed which he hadn’t done. Wilbur shushed him but his words fell on deaf ears as he pulled the boy into a hug. Tommy stared at his friend, with his pale face and his distant eyes, and he realized with horror that he was telling the truth.

"It won't matter, will it?" Tommy paused. They were halfway back to their hideout now. He had been so engrossed with his thoughts that he hadn't realized Tubbo had stopped walking beside him. He looked back at him and saw he was about ten blocks away from him. He was staring at Tommy, blue eyes dull. The crossbow was strapped to his back still, unloaded. Tommy had his backpack slung over his shoulder, a habit he had picked up when he was younger and still hadn't dropped.

"None of this matters. Wilbur will still lose his mind, won't he? He'll want revenge against Eret. Or he'll want more land, more power, more people; he'll always want more, won't he?"

And what could Tommy say to that when he knew his friend was right? He knew his brother was damned. He was rotten, had been since they were children. And his eldest brother was no different, carrying the title Blood God as if it were something to be proud of.

"Are you saying we kill Wilbur, Tobias?"

"I don't know."

This was wearing them both down. Tommy knew that. Seeing their friends in happier times, relieving memories they had tried so hard to forget. It wasn't good for them, this changing, pushing all these memories away; but they couldn't stop. They were here for a reason.

"I don't know, Thomas."

He watched as tears fell down his friend's cheeks. He dropped his backpack to the floor, but he didn't know what to do. So many years being together, so many years of running until they found a solution, of skirting around memories and pretending the other wasn't crying from the nightmare they had just gasped awake from; it changed you. But he had changed a long time ago. When he had seen that flurry of fireworks, those sickening colors that still made him want to vomit when he saw them together, when he heard his best friend screaming in agony—Thomas had changed. So had Tobias.

Could they really be who they used to be? Could they really save themselves this way?

He opened his arms. Tobias took a small step forward, then two steps back. But Thomas kept his arms open, his weathered face earnest, and his eyes sad but welcoming. Tobias lingered for only a moment before he quickly crossed the distance between them, and he fell into Thomas's arms, hugging him tightly with his arms wrapped around his neck while Thomas wrapped his own around his waist. Shortly after the hug started they both tightened their grip, clinging to each other with shaky sighs of relief. When was the last time they had touched like this? When was the last time they had embraced each other so deeply?

When had they been so scared of touch, even when it came from their best friend?

Thomas felt something hard scrap the side of his chin through his beard and he squeezed his eyes shut. Tobias tried to shift away but Thomas refused to let him go, refused to let his friend be ashamed of something that could never be taken away. Another scar that wouldn't be taken away by the painful process of respawn. He had come out with it, after all.

"Schlatt is dead, Tobias," he whispered. "He won't hurt your younger self."

"He won't give him a burn scar that covers his entire left side."

Tears rushed down Thomas's cheeks and he buried his head into his shorter friend's shoulder, leaning over him now. His friend had gotten a couple more inches through the years, but so had he.

"But Wilbur still roams. Wilbur could still give Tommy that scar on your cheek. He could try to blow Tommy up and only succeed in taking away half of his hearing. Just like he did with you."

"We have to wait," Thomas whispered, and fuck, he was such a hypocrite he realized as he thought back to his younger self, who still went by Tommy. But he couldn't remember ever being so loud, being so brash like his younger self was, back in those walls he still thought as home. He wondered if Tommy would see the walls as just parts of a cage. He wondered if Tubbo was right, if he would just end up as jaded and as scarred as Thomas was now.

What would their younger, naïve selfs think? If they saw them and knew who they were? Would Tommy refuse to believe that Thomas was him in just a few decades? Would Tubbo cry upon seeing Tobias, who carried a burn scar that covered the left side and curved up the right side of his neck, decorated the skin around his lips and up to his eyes? The shape of an unstable flame made from fireworks, set off by a man Thomas once loved and trusted.

He wondered if Tommy would refuse to believe that his own older brothers were the cause of it.

"Let's go back to our spot," he whispered, eyes heavy and stinging still from his tears. He was tired. Oh so tired. He just wanted to lie in bed and never leave. Tobias had killed Schlatt. Wasn't that enough? "We'll watch and wait. And then we'll decide what to do."

Tobias nodded against his shoulder, and they did just that. Thomas's hand found Tobias and they clung to each other's hands all the way back to their hideout, as if they were kids again.

But with Thomas thirty five, and Tobias just recently turned thirty-four, they both knew they were far from children.

But they could pretend. They could pretend that they could change the past. They could pretend that they were still Tommy and Tubbo.

_We never stood a chance,_ Tobias thought, a sad smile coming to his lips as they walked.

**Author's Note:**

> I. I know that was probably confusing. Basically, any time that Tubbo and Tommy were with each other, they were Tobias and Thomas. Any time Tubbo and Tommy were with their friends, then they were just themselves. When they were underground? Tobias and Thomas. When they were at the festival? Tommy and Tubbo. When Tommy was patroling on the wall? Just good old Tommy staring at Tobias and Thomas.
> 
> Tobias and Thomas are their aged versions, they're in their thirties, and they're trying to save their younger selves and their friends. They're broken. They're jaded. And they're angry.
> 
> I don't think I'll do anything else with this? Maybe I'll do a second part but I have... No ideas for it. If you guys like it so much, you're more then welcome to do something with it, or give me your theories and ideas on what you think could/would happen and maybe I'll get inspired. Regardless of what happens, I hope you guys enjoyed this.
> 
> This would've never happened without Hazel2023's chapter, which I've linked above. seriously, check it out. If it doesn't take you directly to that chapter, its chapter nine. Shit's GOOD, guys, gals, and pals.


End file.
